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The tea ritual at a wedding often precedes the ceremony. Members of the family, relatives, and close friends partake of tea poured by the couple. It is a custom predominantly performed in eastern cultures. It symbolizes the flow of blessings – prosperity and gratitude, health and humility, longevity and eternal peace. It can last upwards of 45 minutes, so it needs a bit of logistical planning to fit into the wedding day timeline!

Ordained ministers Rick and Jennifer Tan of Tan Weddings & Events created words for the tea ritual that fit and flow beautifully WITHIN the wedding ceremony. The words honor the couple’s gratitude for their parents’ unconditional love, a model of love and support. Tea is prepared ahead of time and presented in a tea pot with cups on a tray, placed at a draped table near the officiant. In the ceremony, the tea is poured by the couple and given to the parents/grandparents. While the ritual retains all the symbolism of the longer, more traditional version, the Pouring of Tea ritual in the ceremony takes about 5-6 minutes to perform.

Interested in adding a tea ritual in your ceremony? You’ll find it in the Wedwordy app > Gratitude Rituals > Pouring of Tea. Simply select it and drop it into your ceremony, typically placed following the Greeting. Enjoy!

https://wedwordy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Michelle-Chas-167.jpg38405760Wedwordyhttp://wedwordy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wedwordy-White-Logo-2-01-1030x307.pngWedwordy2019-02-03 08:32:072019-02-03 11:59:06Ritual of Pouring the Tea in a Wedding Ceremony

Vow renewal ceremonies are extra special! It is a celebration of love that lives through the vows promised from wedding day, and continues to strengthen with each passing day. For some couples, it may be celebrated as a family, where the children are present. There may be guests from their wedding day who are amazed at how time flies and how love never dies. A vow renewal, or an affirmation of commitment ceremony, has wording available in Wedwordy!

Just choose the Vow Renewal template. The couple may use the script with its beautifully-written default passages, or they may personalize it further by selecting other available Wedwordy passages, edit the wording, or import other content for infinite possibilities.

Here is an excerpt from the Pronouncement element in the Vow Renewal template:

“Your marriage is a testament to the enduring power of love, blessed with the abundance of love that surrounds you, and lifts you, and celebrates with you. So it is with great honor that, on this glorious day, I affirm your everlasting commitment as partners in life!”

Photo of Rick and Jennifer at their 20th anniversary celebration – with lavender and halo-halo at their feet | Ron Tan Photography

Are you officiating your friend’s wedding but have no idea where to begin? Are you nervous that you might stumble or say the wrong thing? Whether you are a professional or ordained online, Wedwordy is a unique tool to help guide individuals in customizing the perfect words for the wedding ceremony.

Julian, a close friend of Briana and Jonathan, officiated their wedding using our app Wedwordy in order to create an endearing ceremony that was a perfect representation of the couple’s love for one another. He began with the “secular” template and added excerpts from the Elements Library such as the “Story of Admiration,” which described three elements the couple adores about each other. With over 80 passages to choose from, you have the option of enhancing your voice and adding a splash of your own personality.

Here is an excerpt chosen by the beloved couple:

“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”

-Vincent Van Gogh

Why stress? Use Wedwordy today!

Do you want to learn more? Check out this video, Pro Tips on How to Run a Wedding Rehearsal, by clicking the link below!

A wonderful couple in northern California had requested a special unity ritual to be shared in their wedding ceremony. When Kali and Chase explained to Reverend Rick Tan of Tan Weddings & Events about the significance of the oathing stones, he was super excited to incorporate it into their wedding ceremony script! The ritual originated in Scotland where couples would lay their hands on a giant stone as they professed their love and exchanged their vows. In the ceremony, a giant boulder would be unwieldy, so a smooth river stone was used and passed through all the guests’ hands before ending up with the couple, just in time for their exchange of vows – so beautiful!

Now, Wedwordy includes it our growing library of fabulous passages. You can find it in the element Unity Rituals. When you compose your wedding ceremony draft, go to the Elements Library, choose Unity Ritual, drag it into your ceremony (we recommend following the Greeting), click “Save Draft” to update the new ceremony flow, then scroll through the Unity Ritual passages for Oathing Stone. Select and save it, and it’s now in your wedding ceremony script!

Wedding Chicks is nearing 2 million followers on FaceBook, so you can understand our extreme elation as featured guests! The online uber wedding resource provides couples with lots and lots of inspiration for their wedding day. We are excited to know their readership will learn more about Wedwordy, as it has much to offer in composing personalized wedding words from the processional to the pronouncement. Engagement season is here, and couples will want to know they have an app that will help them with writing their wedding ceremony script!

Check out Wedwordy on Wedding Chicks: Write Your Own Ceremony with Wedwordy. The post has a bit of background info about the app, three sample scripts generated and personalized from the app, and a list of helpful advice for starting your wedding ceremony words.

What is a secular wedding ceremony? It is a ceremony that reflects the couple’s choice of a wedding script that does not prescribe to any particular faith or religious affiliation. Whether couples are religious themselves or not, they believe their wedding – their marriage – stands on a commitment of friendship and love. And love is universal, belonging to all faiths, cultures, and partnerships.

The wedding words of a secular ceremony will contain few or no references to God or religion. For instance, in the Catholic faith, marriage is referred to as Holy Matrimony, which is one of the seven sacraments. For a couple who is not Catholic, that term may hold no special meaning. So they may choose to use other words such as “marriage”, “commitment”, or even “sacred unity” throughout their ceremony. If the ceremony contains readings, they may be poems or verses about love, friendship, respect, or passion, instead of Bible verses.

Here is an excerpt from “The Invitation” by Oriah:

“It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand alone in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes.”

Wedwordy is fortunate to have Oriah’s permission to use her beautiful, secular poem about deep, unconditional love. You can find it in the Secular Template of Wedwordy, or choose it from the Element Library of Wedwordy under “Poems & Readings”. Using the Secular Template of Wedwordy gives couples wishing for a non-religious ceremony a great starting point for their personalized wedding ceremony script.

https://wedwordy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/kylejulie_0624.jpg57603840Wedwordyhttp://wedwordy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wedwordy-White-Logo-2-01-1030x307.pngWedwordy2018-11-28 21:39:052018-11-28 21:39:46How to Have a Secular Wedding Ceremony

So you’re almost ready to use Wedwordy in writing your wedding ceremony script! To help guide you, here are some prompts for you to reflect on.

Top Ten Questions to Ponder Before Writing Your Wedding Script

How do you define your relationship? Choose readings, reflections, and wording that reflect your personalities and your ideals about married life. Wedwordy has several passages to choose from in all the elements that would resonate best with you, such as in Poems & Readings, Reflections, and even the Exchange of Vows.

Where are you in the spectrum of traditional to contemporary? Wedwordy gives you the opportunity to choose passages that lean towards traditional such as the reading from Corinthians “Love is patient and kind…” or to contemporary such as the Key to Love “The key to love is respect…” and to mix-and-match to give your script just the right flavor!

Is your faith central to your beliefs in guiding your marriage? Starting with Wedwordy templates such as Christian, Secular, Catholic, among other faiths, give you a starting point that honors your faith, and from there, you can tailor to your personal beliefs as a couple.

Is your cultural background important for you to honor? There are unity rituals that are cultural-based in Wedwordy, such as the ritual of the cord/lasso, or stomping of the glass that you can add to your script.

Are there any family expectations you feel need to be met? Often, couples find it a challenge to create a ceremony that reflects them and honors family at the same time! With Wedwordy, since you are able to mix-and-match elements that pull from tradition, faith, culture, poems, contemporary, and also add original external content, you can carefully harmonize wording that appeases and appeals to invested family!

How comfortable are you in being the center of attention? Wedwordy gives you an estimate of the length of the ceremony, and allows you to choose elements where you have more to say, or less to say, depending on your comfort level.

Would you like to share your story, personal vows? You know your guests better than anyone, so would sharing the story of how you met, or exchanging your written vows, be fun to include in your ceremony? In Wedwordy, when you choose the element “Story | Admiration”, you can give a space in the ceremony to allow your officiant to write a narrative about how you met and fell in love!

Will you have friends/family participate in the wedding ceremony? In Wedwordy, there is an interactive “Shout Out” that allows your guests to respond with a resounding “I will!” to a series of questions lending their support, or perhaps honor a family member or friend by having them do any of the 20 readings and prayers available in Wedwordy.

Will you translate the words, or some of the words, to another language? If you will be translating your script, or portions of the script, to another language for your officiant, keep in mind how that will flow in your ceremony, and how that might adjust the length of the ceremony as well.

What do you want your gathered guests to remember most about your ceremony? Lastly, this is a good question to consider. This may help shape the flow of your wedding ceremony script. Consider what the highlights of the ceremony will be – a reading, your personal vows, a unity ritual, and consider the overall mood – light, traditional, fun.

Conducting a wedding ceremony rehearsal is not as challenging as you might think, if you know the basic logistics of a wedding ceremony. Tan Weddings & Events and Wedwordy teamed up to produce a short 3 minute video of a wedding rehearsal for our friends Briana and Jonathan. The video depicts the couple’s partnership, personality, and family circle. Tailor the ceremony to what suits you and your partner, and your vision.

Here are a few highlight tips of running a rehearsal:

Start with the ceremony line-up, so the facilitator can see who is in the Wedding Party, the honored family members, and + one’s who wanted to tag along!

The Wedding party should be shoulder to shoulder, slightly angled, no sun glasses, no gum, and no locking the knees.

The couple stands facing each other, hand-in-hand, throughout the ceremony.

Next practice the Recessional (the exit), beginning with the newlyweds, then the Wedding Party starting closest to the couple, then parents and grandparets as applicable.

End the rehearsal by practicing the Processional (the entrance).

If possible, have witnesses sign the marriage license with the officiant/coordinator facilitating. It is one less think to worry about on the wedding day!

From the Blessings & Prayers element in Wedwordy, Gwen and Jay selected a Buddhist prayer that resonated with them. The couple had come from Oregon to exchange their vows at Drake’s Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore along the northern California coast. Though the couple may have hoped for some California sun, they were met with gentle rain, mist, cloudy skies, and wind! The weather only heightened the mood of reverence and spirituality for the couple’s intimate wedding ceremony. Reverend Rick Tan of Tan Weddings & Events presided the couple’s exchange of vows as family and friends huddled together to witness the magnificence of nature and a couple’s love!

Here is the Buddhist blessing, one of several passages available in Wedwordy!

Love people in their humblest human strivings, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all of Nature’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. You will come to understand that both of you are in all things. Therefore, it is wise and fruitful to take in the whole world With an all-embracing love.

We love hearing about happy newlyweds who used Wedwordy to compose their wedding words and enjoyed a wonderful ceremony, but we can’t take all the credit. To make the entire celebration memorable and meaningful, it takes the concerted efforts of top notch wedding creatives. Our sister company Tan Weddings & Events hosts some of the most extraordinary weddings in the northern California area, and they work with other amazing wedding specialists in the region to bring a couple’s vision to life.

Sara and Gabe enjoyed a beautiful evening at The Maples in Woodland, CA, surrounded by family and friends. Their ceremony words reflected their love as a couple. Using Wedwordy, they customized their script with the addition of a wine letterbox ceremony, and by choosing to share personal vows. The ceremony was followed by cocktails and refreshments, then a dinner reception at this sprawling ranch estate.

A memorable gathering. Forever words of commitment and enduring adoration. Love and friendship. Wedwordy is honored to be a part of it!